It’s wise to avoid debating any fisherman armed with a camera
A recent viral video of an encounter in Sebastian between a homeowner on her dock and a fisherman in the waters nearby begs sharing a little knowledge on the subject of riparian rights.
Calling him a “loser” and herself “rich” while spraying him with a dock hose, the woman claimed he was fishing on her private waters. Bad move. That fisherman has the right to fish anywhere on navigable waters based on the legal principle called the Public Trust Doctrine.
Florida is unique in as much as we have thousands of miles of shoreline along the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, bays, intracoastal waterways, rivers, lakes, canals, etc. The upland owner, both private and public, has riparian rights to those adjoining waters. However, few riparian owners understand riparian rights and the extent, or boundaries, of those rights.
Riparian rights are defined by Florida Statute 254.141(1) and, in short, means rights of the upland owner of land abutting navigable waters. They include rights of ingress/egress, dockage, view, fishing, use of the water, bathing, and ownership of accreted lands.
Even though an upland owner may have riparian rights, those rights are not of a proprietary nature, and the adjacent upland owner does not own them exclusively, or the bottom lands they may encompass. They are rights appurtenant to the upland property. The most common dispute that I see today is in tight coves or at the end of canals where water access is congested.
Did I mention that there are exceptions to every rule?
For instance, years ago, it was OK for a developer to dig canals connecting to state-owned navigable waters. In that example, the canals were dug in privately owned uplands; therefore, even though they may be navigable, the bottom land in those canals are still privately owned. Caution is needed here because most privately owned canals were never conveyed to the adjacent lot owner.
Where are my riparian boundaries? It varies. There is a misconception by most upland owners that their side riparian boundaries are a prolongation of their side upland boundaries. That is rarely true.
Much depends on the geometry of the shore, as well as the location of the “line of navigability,” and little to do with the direction of one’s upland boundaries. Since statehood in 1845, large waterfront landowners have continued to sell and subdivide those lands into smaller and smaller parcels, until now it is not uncommon to find waterfront lots with less than 50 feet of water frontage.
That is where the neighborhood disputes begin.